If you smush enough ingredients into one patty/cake/fritter it’s bound to be good right? This seems to be my logic, as evidenced by these chipotle shrimp cakes or cod potato cakes. It’s kind of a shame really that this will only be the third version of a savory cake to appear on my blog since I actually tend to make a lot of different varieties for my clients. I’ve made vegetable fritters in the summertime when fresh produce is at it’s all time high. I make black bean cakes year-round. There are salmon patties, and crab cakes, and tuna fritters. I never get tired of them. Why? Because the flavor combinations are endless. Also, they’re super easy! I usually just blitz everything in the food processor and voilá, eats time!

I like hummus. Do you? One look at the ingredients to these chickpea patties and you’ll know right off the bat where I got my inspiration from. I even added tiny crumbs of pita chips to the cake itself just to make you proud (!). These chickpea patties are smoky and tangy. They’re crispy and smooth. I ate them by themselves but I wager they’d be delicious slathered with extra homemade hummus between burger buns or pita bread.

On a different note, didya notice the new digs?

It took me over a day to get the design right and my eyeballs have since perished but hey, who needs sight anyway? I thought I was in the clear after I finalized the look of the blog but then I started fiddling with the permalinks and in the span of a one-button click, my entire website was gone. gone. Just a blank white page sitting there chilling. I freaked out! Luckily my host was able to fix it by uninstalling my plugins. But now when I try to re-install a plugin I get an error, which leaves me spam comment plugin-less and I’ve been getting slammed with spam all.day.long. Oh my god the insanity. Life just isn’t fair.

2 tablespoons tahini sesame butter (you can sub in almond or peanut butter but it will change the taste a bit)

1/4 cup feta cheese

zest of 1 lemon

juice of 1/2 lemon

1/4 cup fresh parsley

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon plain greek yogurt

1 egg

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 heaping teaspoon smoked paprika

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

olive oil, for frying

plain greek yogurt, for serving

For the cucumber-red onion relish:

1/2 english cucumber, sliced thin using a mandolin or very sharp knife (and deft cutting skills!)– for the mandolin i had it set at one notch below 1/8″

1/2 small red onion, sliced thinly into quarter moons

juice of 1/2 lemon

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar

a few pinches of aleppo chili pepper (or any other spicy dried pepper of your choice)

s + p to taste

Instructions

For the chickpea patties:

in a food processor, pulse the pita chips to a course crumb. add in the rest of the ingredients and process until it comes together; not too chunky but not too smooth. juuust right.

use an ice cream scoop and portion out the patties and form them in your hands. stash in the fridge for about 30 minutes. while this chills, make the cucumber-red onion relish.

when you’re ready to cook the chickpea patties, pour olive oil onto a fry pan and heat over medium flame. when it shimmers, add the chickpea patties in batches of 4, cooking until crisp and golden on both sides, about 3-4 minutes on one side and then another 2-3 minutes on the other. set them onto a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

serve with a dollop of plain greek yogurt and cucumber-red onion relish.

For the cucumber-red onion relish:

combine all ingredients into a small bowl and mix gently with a spoon. let this sit for a while on the counter to quick pickle and get happy. this keeps well in an airtight container in the fridge for about a week.

Anna-Love Stacy’s pita chips, used to buy the huge bags at Costco. Now I know what to do with those crumbs at the bottom of the bag! I’ve tried to make this type of recipe with my leftover chickpeas before, but never liked it with panko or breadcrumbs. But pita chips–brilliant!

Stephanie-Linda, thanks so much! Yes, I’m SO over this hellishly cold (is that a term?) winter. So over. Done! It was beyond thrilling to be out and about the other day in just a sweater– it got up to 50-some degrees, the snow was melting (I could see grass!), I drove with the windows down…and then bam! we get dumped with another 6+ inches of snow. We’ll get over this soon but it just won’t be soon enough!

Linda-LOVE the new look Steph! (were you overtaken by a bout of spring cleaning? UGH, winter, begone) but spam comments are seriously annoying. I hope you figure the problem out.

And I truly envy your clients. These chickpea cakelets look and sound amazing (pita chips?? Too much goodness) and I love the little dabs of yogurt you like to plop on top!

Stephanie-Cynthia, thank you! I’m so relieved it worked (sort of, still getting the kinks out). And I love Mediterranean food– especially that luxuriously pungent garlic sauce…do you know which one I’m talking about? Man, I need to make some of that too!